Chapter 19

  Fear!

  Fear is an interesting thing;

  It bites, it binds, it sucks, it clings.

  It digs its claws into the mind,

  And digs around until it finds—

  A purchase, on which to cling,

  This can be the darndest thing.

  Perhaps the fear of heights begets

  A phobia of that which does caress—

  One on a sunny summer’s day.

  The wind, a reminder of one’s stay

  Atop a tree or mountain peak,

  From where the mind can’t help but think:

  What if I leap?

  And in the darkness:

  What if I sleep?

  Shall the demons of the night attack?

  Shall they eat me for a snack?

  Some claim these fears baseless, irrational;

  But they know not the great national—

  Pride of the kingdom of fear;

  Where spiders laugh and monsters leer,

  That lives within the minds of men;

  It will not break; it will not bend.

  For all is not just imagined;

  Fear is real, built upon what happened.

  When the mind is scared and weak,

  It hides away within a pique—

  Of rage, of anger, of righteous wrath.

  Or if it can’t, it takes on sloth.

  And slumbers within the mind.

  A silent passenger that one might find—

  When stumbling upon a trigger,

  An event that robs one of their vigour.

  The only way to be safe and sure,

  Is to deal with these demons before—

  They take over completely.

  And turn you into a thing, once sweetly,

  Mannered and kind.

  Now, cruel and blind—

  To all that is good, and nice, and clear.

  What can I do, my dear?

  You must look inside and peer

  At your fear.

  Draw it out, for you must fight.

  To be ruled by fear is not right.

  And to those who cannot, I say:

  Fight anyway.

  Tis better to die a man unchained

  Than to live a life restrained,

  By ‘What if?’s, ‘No’s, and ‘Maybe’s.

  Win and be reborn a baby.

  Win and be not driven crazy.

  Win and take command of fear.

  Win and fill your heart with cheer.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Elijah was trapped in an illusion of his own fears. In his youth, he had been in a rather difficult spot, and it had slightly scarred him. To protect the young man, his own mind had repressed the memory, and it had all become a blur.

  Now that he was forced to relive the events, he remembered the strange message left by the immortal. At the time, it had completely overwhelmed him, but now that his mind Attributes had increased, he could withstand the pressure the memories placed on him.

  Even within the remembered hallucination, Elijah could feel he was being pulled towards that strange being. It was on Terra Torus, the world which was linked to these Trials. He didn’t know how he knew this; the knowledge was simply imprinted on his psyche.

  In the memory, he had just woken from his involuntary nap, and his two best friends were fretting over him. The phone’s light was beginning to flicker as the battery got ever lower.

  “We need to get out of here!” Elijah exclaimed when he finally came fully back to himself and remembered where they were.

  “About that…” Noah began, trailing off and not meeting Elijah’s eye.

  “What?” the twelve-year-old asked Boaz, knowing the other friend would be honest with him.

  “You’ve been unconscious for more than an hour.”

  “And?”

  “And the tide has come in; we’re trapped here tonight.” Boaz informed in a surprisingly calm tone, not wanting to worry his mate.

  “What?” Elijah asked, uncomprehending, “But how?”

  “That’s what I want to know. One moment you were standing there, staring at a blank wall; the next, you fainted,” Noah replied.

  “I was?” Elijah asked, looking at the empty stretch of cave wall in the dying light. He wanted to ask where the stone face had gone, but for the first time in his fear-induced memory, his intentions and the actions of his past self didn’t align.

  “I don’t remember anything after we entered the cave,” the twelve-year-old Elijah said. His young mind was not strong enough to remember the experience, but that was not the case for his present self.

  Elijah tried to ask his friends why they thought he was staring at a blank wall before he passed out, and what happened to the immortal’s face with the blood-red eyes? But no words came forth. Although it felt like he was living the events once more, this was only a memory.

  “That’s strange,” Boaz commented when Elijah’s words sunk in. “You don’t have any medical conditions that could have caused it?”

  “None,” the preteen confirmed, pushing himself up onto his elbows. The movement felt strange to the older young man. In his mind, he was sixteen, and he expected the arms that propped him up to be longer.

  Now that a fissure had been formed between himself and his remembered self, Elijah started gaining more of an awareness and was beginning to be able to detach from the memory.

  “Say,” Elijah began, “why didn’t you drag me out of here before the tide came in?”

  “That’s what I said,” Noah said to Boaz, as if this had been something they had argued about.

  “I didn’t know if it would be safe to move you,” Boaz admitted, “and by the time we agreed to try, both sides of the bay were cut off by the rising tide. Trapping us between the cliffs and the sea. We probably could have climbed out but not while carrying you. Sorry,” the larger boy apologised, embarrassed of his hesitancy.

  “That’s fine,” Elijah reassured, “but why didn’t you use my phone to call for help?”

  “No signal,” Noah explained briefly.

  “So… We’re stuck here?” Elijah asked.

  “Yep,” the pair replied in unison. Boaz with sombreness and Noah with excitement.

  “My parents are going to be so mad; I’ll be grounded for a year,” Boaz muttered.

  “Don’t worry about the future,” Noah encouraged, “Just think about this as a sleepover; we can tell ghost stories.”

  Boaz didn’t seem mollified, so Elijah tried to pluck up some courage and chimed in, “Yeah, look on the bright side. So long as my phone’s got battery, we still have light.”

  There was a brief second where Elijah was able to see Boaz’s face light up right before the light went out and the trio was plunged into darkness.

  That was just his Luck! The thought brought back memories of the future, about how he had apparently been trapped in the Trials by a goddess of Luck, and the separation between the remembered Elijah and the imagined Elijah grew.

  There was a moment where no one said or did anything, and then panic began to set in. It was night outside, and clouds covered the sky, so not a drop of light could refract along the water’s surface. The cave was pitch-black.

  “You were saying,” Boaz said dryly. Elijah detected a slight tremor in his voice, though he appreciated his friend’s attempt to bring levity to the situation.

  Noah, being the little psycho that he was, used that as an excuse to crawl over Elijah and scream, “Boo,” in his ear.

  The young man nearly rocketed out of his skin. There had been no warning, just the sudden noise. Not being able to see anything, he shot up. Noah’s and Elijah’s heads cracked off one another, momentarily breaking the constant sound of breaking waves with the breaking of skulls.

  Elijah rubbed his noggin and grumbled, but Noah couldn’t help himself and laughed. The interaction had managed to take the pair’s mind off their situation for a moment, but only a moment.

  The darkness seemed to press in once more, and Elijah decided that stories may not be a bad idea, though definitely not about ghosts.

  The next hour or two was spent exchanging tales. Although they were in complete darkness, in a cave at night, none of them were alone. As the temperature plummeted, they were left with no choice but to huddle together for warmth.

  It didn’t take long for the idea of sleep to be proposed. They were all tired. Elijah didn’t want to lose the comfort of the others’ voices, but he was afraid of sounding scared. Though in truth, he was scared.

  Now that he could look back on the events with a clear mind, he realised he hadn’t taken the comfort from the other’s presence he should have. Elijah’s focus had only remained on the suffocating darkness all around him.

  The young man had never been a fan of the dark. Even at twelve, he still kept a nightlight on through the wee hours. As the others fell asleep and he was left all alone in the blackness, fear really began to take hold.

  He didn’t sleep a wink, expecting at any moment for something to come forth from the shadows and strike. The experience, at the time, had been traumatising, and it led to a greater fear of the dark that he, to this day, had not managed to shrug off.

  He remembered this as a night of horrors where he could be attacked at any moment. He had never thought about or talked about it since, and the fear had taken a place of reverence within his mind. It had been placed on a metaphorical pedestal.

  Now that Elijah was reliving the experience, it wasn’t that bad. He could feel the warmth of his friends next to him and the soothing whoosh of water. Truth be told, it was peaceful.

  The twelve-year-old was just paranoid because of the experience with the immortal, an experience he didn’t remember but that still shook his soul. It was yet another complication that he was doing his best to forget about.

  If he never thought of that creature again, it would be too soon. That person-shaped monster was perhaps the scariest he had yet seen. Even given the promise of an untethered boon, he didn’t think waking that thing would be worth it.

  Elijah had been shown the creature’s life story, and although he only remembered glimpses, there had been far too much death for him to ever consider helping them.

  Now that the sixteen-year-old had gotten a proper look at the root of his fear, it wasn’t half as bad as he had remembered. In fact, as he relaxed into the memory, the dark actually began to seem rather comforting. Less a pillow trying to smother him and more a blanket wrapping him up safe.

  Something differed from his memory. Elijah recalled this night as long and fear-filled, but just as his body became filled with paranoia, a voice chimed across the darkness.

  “Elijah?” it asked with motherly concern.

  That was impossible! Elijah would recognise that voice anywhere. But it didn’t make sense; he didn’t see his mother until the next day, and her voice wasn’t concerned; it was furious.

  His body reacted to the sound, and he turned over, causing his two sleeping companions to snort but not wake. He saw her; he actually saw her!

  Her tall, gaunt frame, long raven-black hair, and kind but weary smile were illuminated by an underglow of some sort. The radiance didn’t spread from her body, only lighting up her; she was still surrounded by darkness.

  “Elijah,” she said again with warmth, holding out her arms, expecting a hug.

  This was too much for the teen. It had been weeks since he had seen his mother. She was just as he remembered, dressed in her usual nurses scrubs and tired from a long day of work.

  His body moved on its own as tears began to well in his eyes. Could this be real? Had he been sent back in time somehow? With everything else that had happened, why couldn’t that be the case?

  And, he thought as he began to stumble towards his mother’s loving arms, did it really matter if this was just a dream?

  Yes. It mattered a lot. Elijah had sworn to himself that he would beat these Trials and make it back home to his family, his real family. There were no shortcuts in life, no lucky breaks. Everything was hard work!

  Just as the now sinister-seeming smile of his not-mother brightened, anticipating he would jump into her arms, Elijah lashed out.

  As his arm straightened for a punch, his vision of himself altered. The illusion of his twelve-year-old self was peeled away, and he felt it as he returned to his body.

  There was still darkness all around, but the sound of water was gone. Elijah had fought through his fear. Just before his hit connected with the woman he knew in his heart to be an imposter, despite her perfect image, a game-like screen appeared before him, confirming the young man’s suspicions.

  Status Effect:

  You have overcome the Status Effect: Fear.

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